Realtime Optimization Of Compute Infrastructure In A Virtualized Environment

ABSTRACT

A system and method is provided to dynamically optimize the topography of a compute cluster in real time based on the runtime configuration, specified as metadata, of jobs in a queuing or scheduling environment. The system provisions or terminates multiple types of virtualized resources based on the profile of all applications of the jobs in a current queue based on their aggregate runtime configuration specified as requirements and rank expressions within associated metadata. The system will continually request and terminate compute resources as jobs enter and exit the queue, keeping the cluster as minimal as possible while still being optimized to complete all jobs in the queue, optimized for cost, runtime or other metric. End users can specify the runtime requirements of jobs, thereby preventing the user from having to know about the physical profile of the compute cluster to specifically architect their jobs.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to virtualized compute infrastructure in both public, private and hybrid public-private environments, and to a method and system for the automatic, realtime, optimization of that virtualized compute infrastructure based on characteristics of the jobs intended to run within the environment.

2. Description of Related Art

Cloud based resources are typically virtualized compute environments in which a series a physical servers are provisioned into one or more virtual servers available for temporary use, each utilizing a subset of the total resources of a physical machine. When using one or more infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider(s), the user typically has control over the desired configuration of the virtualized infrastructure. Examples of this control may include the ability to choose virtual hardware from a list of predetermined configurations or the ability to specify the exact resources required for the desired virtualized hardware configuration. Cloud-based computational infrastructure typically has different pricing points based on the resources provided by the different virtualized machine types: the more resources provided, the higher the cost per unit of time.

Traditional compute environments are typically of fixed size and limited heterogeneity due to being based on limited hardware configurations at the time of purchase. The result being that the machines may or may not be capable of performing the work a job requires due to platform incompatibilities, disk space, memory or other limiting factors such as network interconnect. Conversely, it is also possible that a job running on a single machine underutilizes the machine resulting in wasted resources.

Current auto-scaling compute resources for an application, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,346,921, are focused on predictive auto-scaling based upon historical usage, of a single virtual machine configuration in terms of RAM, number of CPUs, etc., or instance type, ignoring situations where many applications are submitted to a compute environment, each requiring their own optimal VM (virtual machine) configuration or multiple VM configuration.

Similar current cloud based solutions, such as CycleCloud, provision virtualized hardware based on the number of idle jobs in a queuing, messaging, or batch scheduling system such as Condor or GridEngine. These solutions require the virtualized configuration of the execution nodes used to run the jobs be determined ahead of time and then automatically provision virtual machines matching this one configuration to execute idle jobs in the queue, message bus, or scheduler. This often results in the need to define a virtual machine configuration capable of running any job in a workflow, the least common multiple machine configuration for all the jobs, even if this configuration has excess resources needed by the majority of the jobs.

It is desirable to leverage the modern, virtualized compute environment's ability to specify different hardware configurations in realtime such that automatic provisioning of infrastructure can be based on the specific needs and characteristics of each job in a queue of jobs. Optimizing the type of virtual instance created by using metadata from queued jobs would allow jobs to complete faster, cheaper, and with fewer errors. This invention describes such a method and system.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present system provides a requirements engine to make informed decisions on how to automatically optimize compute infrastructure based on job execution requirements in real time. In addition to the requirements engine, the system provides a storage mechanism for job metadata that captures the runtime requirements of different software applications that jobs may use or the characteristics of specific jobs in the queue if they are known at submission time. The metadata stored by the system contains a logical expression describing the environment the job requires in order to execute properly, which may contain any measurable property of a virtualized server, or plurality of servers, such as, but not limited to, any of the following metrics:

Aggregate CPU performance;

Available number of CPUs;

Available maximum memory;

Available maximum disk space;

Aggregate disk performance;

Aggregate network bandwidth;

Base operating system;

Additional required software configuration;

Maximum cost per hour for IaaS provisioned hardware;

Geographic location of physical hardware;

Scheduling system queue that the job is placed in;

Jurisdiction of physical hardware (e.g. can't run on servers governed by the Patriot Act); and

Name of the one or more IaaS provider(s) to potentially use.

An example of a logical expression using some of the above properties to describe a job requiring at least four CPUs and at least two gigabytes of RAM may look like the following:

-   -   CPUCount>4 && Memory>2G

An example of a set of logical expressions using some of the above properties to describe a job requiring at multiple machines, one with at least four CPUs and at least two gigabytes of RAM and another with 8 CPUs and a 8 GB of RAM, may look like the following:

-   -   [“CPUCount>4 && Memory>2G”, “CPUCount>8 && Memory>8G”]

The logical expression may also just be a type of virtual machine configuration required to execute the job, such as ‘m1.small’, or a set of nodes that are required to execute the job: [“m1.small”, “c1.xlarge”, “m1.xlarge”].

The requirements engine processes the metadata for each job in the queue in realtime and determines the optimal virtualized machine configuration for the job to be executed on based on the requirements specified in the metadata. Optionally, this process can be a direct mapping from the queue name the job is in to a type of configuration of virtual machine or machines that are created for those jobs. As more jobs are added to the queue, the system continues to process the metadata associated with each idle job, provisioning additional virtualized machines, either a single machine or resource per job or multiple resources per job, with each resource optimized to the unique runtime requirements of each job.

In addition to starting and stopping nodes based on idle jobs in a queue or scheduling system, the requirements engine will make new provisioning decisions based on what virtual instances have already been provisioned and started; starting additional instances only when the backlog of work for current instances passes some user-defined threshold. When determining the hardware requirements of a job based on its metadata, the system will inspect previously provisioned hardware that has completed or is near completing any job(s) it was initially assigned, to determine if the hardware is suitable for running a currently idle job. In the case the hardware can be re-used, the system will not provision a new virtual machine and instead let the job be assigned to the idle or nearing idle node.

Furthermore, the requirements engine can, if requested by the user, terminate any virtual machines that were previously provisioned to run jobs that have now completed are standing unused in the pool of machines. In most IaaS environments, rented virtual machines are billed at specific time intervals, typically each hour from the time the machine was provisioned. The proposed system has the ability track this billing interval for each instance it starts, ensuring that an idle virtual machine is terminated prior to the next billing period. Terminating a virtual machine when it is no longer running the jobs and has no jobs that require it in the queue will reduce the overall cost in IaaS cloud environment as well as keeping the cluster topography minimized over the lifespan of the compute environment.

The algorithm the requirements engine provides to determine the hardware required to run a job can also be extended to not only include minimal requirements to run the job, but also preferential metrics that are not required to run the job, resulting in a dynamic ranking system against available virtual machine configurations. For example: the metadata describing a job might describe a system where the job only requires two gigabytes of memory to run, but it prefers more memory if available and when given the choice between a virtualized machine with two and four gigabytes of RAM, the one with more RAM should be ranked higher when deciding which machine to provision.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a block diagram which shows the process of both a job and accompanying metadata submission by an end user or job submission portal, command-line tool, API, or web page/service, such as but not limited to CycleServer, shell commands, or RESTful APIs, along with the requirements engine determining a matching virtual machine configuration from one or more IaaS provider(s).

FIG. 2 is a block diagram which shows the requirements engine and the variables that can drive the algorithm which determines which of the available virtualized hardware to provision.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the matching of an idle job and the metadata associated with the job to a previously provisioned set of virtual machines that have either completed or are near completion of their jobs.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the matching of an idle job, using the metadata associated with the job, to a virtual machine based on both a minimum requirements expression as well a ranking expression used to determine the preference when multiple machine configurations match the requirements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

A preferred embodiment of a process and system according to the invention will be described, but the invention is not limited to this embodiment.

It is understood the virtual machine configuration, or instance/node type, required to run a job may be a single processor on a machine time, multiple processors, or multiple virtual machines of varying types.

In the preferred embodiment, the requirements engine looks an individual job queue or a plurality of job queues in a scheduler or messaging middleware, including but not limited to Condor, GridEngine, Platform LSF, Platform Symphony, AMQP queues, MQ series, AWS SQS, as examples, calculating the required infrastructure for the tasks, or jobs, in those queues, and starting up an new infrastructure required based upon the difference between the current, expected, and ideal number of virtual machines of various configurations.

Referring to FIG. 1, the block diagram shows the process of both a job and accompanying metadata submission by an end user or job submission portal, such as CycleServer, along with the requirements engine determining a matching virtual machine configuration from one or more IaaS provider(s).

The processes and components in this system are:

-   -   The end user or submission portal, command-lines, APIs, or web         page/service (A1) generates and submits job for the queue/batch         scheduler (A2) in addition to generating and storing metadata         describing the logical requirements of the job in the metadata         storage system (A3).     -   This causes the requirements engine (A4) to find idle jobs in         the queue/scheduling system (A2) and matching metadata (A3).     -   The requirements engine interacts with one or more IaaS         provider(s) (A5) to determine the available virtual machine         configurations (A5).     -   The requirements engine (A4) chooses a virtual configuration         from the list above (A5) which matches all of the logical         requirements defined in the metadata (A3) and provisions a new         virtual machine (A6), on which the jobs (A2) execute.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram which shows the requirements engine and the variables that can drive the algorithm which determines which of the available virtualized hardware to provision.

The processes and components in this system are:

-   -   The job queue/batch scheduler containing jobs that have yet to         be completed (B1) while the metadata storage contains matching         requirements for each job in the queue (B2).     -   The requirements engine (B3) stores the metrics of each         available virtual machine able to be provisioned by one or more         IaaS provider(s) (B4 a & B4 b).     -   The requirements engine algorithm determines the matching         virtual machine configuration (B5) to the requirements in the         job metadata (B2), provisioning the matching configuration on         the proper IaaS provider to run the job.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the matching of an idle job and the job's associated metadata to a previously provisioned set of virtual machines that have either completed or are near completion of their jobs.

The processes and components in this system are:

-   -   The job queue/batch scheduler containing jobs that have yet to         be completed (C1) along with the metadata storage containing         matching requirements for each idle job (C2).     -   These are fed into the requirements engine (C3) which processes         both the list of available machine configurations from one or         more IaaS provider(s) (C5) in addition to the configurations of         all currently provisioned virtual machines (C6).     -   If a job in the queue (C1) can be run on an already provisioned         instance that is idle or about to become idle (C3 b/C4 c) a new         virtual machine is not provisioned and the job is allowed to run         on already provisioned hardware which matches the requirements         specified in the job metadata.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the matching of an idle job using it's associated metadata to a virtual machine based on both a minimum requirements expression as well a ranking expression used to determine the preference when multiple machine configurations match the requirements.

The processes and components in this system are:

-   -   The job queue/batch scheduler containing jobs that have yet to         be completed (D1) along with the metadata storage containing         machine requirements for idle jobs (D2)     -   These are fed into the requirements engine (D3) which stores a         list of available machine configurations from one or more IaaS         provider(s) (D4).     -   The requirements engine (D3) finds matching configurations (D4 b         & D4 c) for the job (D1) using metadata (D2).     -   The requirements engine ranks each of the matching         configurations (D4 b & D4 c) according to the ranking expression         defined in the metadata.     -   A machine is provisioned (D5) based on the highest ranked         matching configuration (D4 c) according to the job metadata         (D2).

A system and method is provided for any party utilizing a virtualized compute cloud environment, including the providers of such environments, to dynamically optimize the topography of a compute cluster in real time based on the runtime configuration, specified as metadata, of jobs in a queuing or scheduling environment. The system provisions or terminates multiple types of virtualized resources in the cloud based on the profile of all applications of the jobs in a current queue based on their aggregate runtime configuration specified as requirements and rank expressions within associated metadata. The system will continually request and terminate compute resources as jobs enter and exit the queue, keeping the cluster as minimal as possible while still being optimized to complete all jobs in the queue, optimized for cost, runtime or other metric. The system provides a way for end users to specify the runtime requirements of their jobs, preventing them from having to know about the physical profile of the compute cluster to specifically architect their jobs to the system they have to run on.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made to it without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. 

1. A method comprising: (a) receiving into a queue a job requiring utilization of compute infrastructure; (b) processing metadata associated with the queued job; and (c) provisioning at least one of a dynamically selected virtualized machine and set of virtual machines, optimized for execution of the queued job based upon at least one of specific attributes of the queued job, a number of jobs in the queue, and utilization of an existing virtual machine.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of a dynamically selected virtualized machine and set of virtual machines is optimized from a set of possible configurations, corresponding to minimum requirements of the queued job.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of a dynamically selected virtualized machine and set of virtual machines is optimized from a set of possible configurations corresponding to preferential requirements for the queued job.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning corresponds to at least one of a previously provisioned machine and a previously provisioned set of machines.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing additional virtualized machines in response to a predetermined number of queued jobs.
 6. A method comprising: (a) inputting to a requirements engine at least two of available IaaS resources, metadata associated with a job and an indication of additional jobs in a queue; and (b) provisioning at least one of a virtual machine and a set of virtual machines, corresponding to the input to the requirements engine.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the metadata includes at least one of an aggregate CPU performance; an available number of CPUs; an available maximum memory; an available maximum disk space; an aggregate disk performance; an aggregate network bandwidth; a base operating system; a maximum cost for IaaS provisioned hardware; a geographic location of physical hardware; a scheduling system queue and a jurisdiction of physical hardware.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein provisioning the at least one of the virtual machine and the set of virtual machines includes running at least one of a previously provisioned instance and a plurality of previously provisioned instances.
 9. The method of claim 6, wherein provisioning the at least one of the virtual machine and the set of virtual machines includes creating at least one of a new instance and a set of new instances.
 10. The method of claim 6, further comprising storing a list of available virtual machine configurations.
 11. The method of claim 6, further comprising storing in the requirements engine a list of available virtual machine configurations.
 12. The method of claim 6, wherein provisioning corresponds to a ranked matching configuration corresponding to the job metadata.
 13. The method of claim 6, wherein the metadata includes a ranking expression.
 14. A method comprising: (a) inputting from a scheduler to a requirements engine an identification of uncompleted jobs; (b) inputting to the requirements engine metadata associated with a new job; and (c) provisioning at least one of a virtual machine and a set of virtual machines corresponding to the input to the requirements engine for completing the new job.
 15. The method of claim 14, further comprising storing a list of available virtual machine configurations.
 16. The method of claim 14, wherein the metadata includes a ranking expression for the new job relative to virtual machine configurations. 